We don't normally feature weddings that have taken place at home but there was just so much to love about Emmet and Emmas quirky theatre wedding Dublin that we couldn't resist.. and in any case, city destination weddings are just so popular right now and we know it will provide heaps of inspiration to those happy couples thinking of celebrating in our Irish capital! And my goodness did they make the most of the city. With the ceremony in the "boys school", reception in the "banqueting hall" of Smock Alley Theatre and the after party in a club, there is no doubt that it was a super unique day all captured amazingly by a new face to FAB, Derak Novak. We sure hope it's only the first of many. Get your party shoes, we're going dancing.

From the Bride..

"Emmet and I met through mutual friends 12 years ago. We've been together for 11 years so for us, our wedding was always about throwing a party. We weren't looking for the "perfect day", we just wanted to celebrate with our family and friends.

We live in Dublin but our families are mostly spread across Sligo, Mayo, Galway and Clare so initially we thought we would go west to get married. It made sense and we would have had a beautiful backdrop but the more we looked into all the options, a city wedding got really appealing. We weren't having a church wedding and with the amount of interesting venues in Dublin our options were wide open. Once we saw the Theatre, Smock Alley our minds were made up but they do have a strict curfew of 11 pm so it was never an option to have our evening reception there. We used the "Boys School" for our ceremony; It's a small room but with a really high ceiling and has a ramped walkway spiralling the walls, so it worked perfectly. We had our family on the ground floor with us and our friends standing on the walkways around the walls. Everyone had a great view and it was so lovely to be able to see everyone faces.

Then we had our drinks reception and our meal in "The Banquette Hall". To keep things relaxed we did away with a traditional style top table. We had long Banquette tables each seating 16 and our table was in the centre of the room so we were close to everyone.

Then after the meal, we had two of the "Dublin White Wedding Buses" collect all of our guests and move them to the Sugar Club on Lesson Street which we had privately hired for the night. It's such a fun room with the tiered seating and the separate side bar overlooking the dance floor. It worked so well on the night everyone had a ball thanks in no small part to our band "The Trips" who had the dance floor filled from about 40 seconds into our first dance. We walk between venues to get a few minutes quiet time together but I believe a lot of fun was had on the buses. Our photographer- the amazingly talented Darek Novak, walked with us and got some really lovely shots up Grafton Street. He has such an eye for detail and a really relaxed approach, you just get on with enjoying your day and almost forget he's there.

I don't think anyone was expecting us to go the traditional route and both of our families were hugely supportive of us doing things our way which made for a lovely relaxing run up to the day. Some guests who had only attended Religious weddings in the past were not sure what to expect from a humanist ceremony but they all enjoyed the personal touches that our celebrant brought to the day. We also have some very talented friends who were involved during the ceremony for singing and videography, which was really personal.

In terms of a theme, both of the venues we choose had so much to offer- we knew we would have to go huge with decor to make any sort of an impact. So instead we choose to keep things simple and just decorate the tables. We named each of the tables after places we had lived, either together or growing up, and had framed engagement cards that we had received from our guests at each end. I love artist's sketch mannequins, so we had two of those at each end of the table holding the wine list and the dessert menu, they also provided a lot of entertainment for the guests between the courses as dance moves and scenes from Films were being re-enacted on some tables. We served our wine in carafes and left them on the tables for our guests to self-serve. I made place mats out of brown paper bags with each guests name hand stamped onto it for the seating plan. For the centrepieces we sprayed tin cans either teal or purple (to match the bridesmaids skirts and the ties the grooms men wore) and as it was January and there were no flowers out yet- so we just filled the cans with twigs and decorated the twigs with hand folded paper flowers.

Music and Photographer are two of the biggest spends for a wedding, but for us both are worth it. For the reception we couldn't have been happier with our band The Tripps who had the dance floor packed all night and our photographer Darek Novak who was so relaxed and enjoyable to be around- money well spent on both counts.

For transport, we did hire two buses to move guest between venues but on the morning Emmet walked to the Ceremony and I hopped in a Taxi with my Dad, we didn't see the need for a fancy car for a few minutes' drive.

Instead of paying to have a hairdresser and makeup artist come to us we just booked into a local salon which saved us time and money as they could see the four of us at the same time.

Flowers can also be a big expense but we kept that to a minimum. I bought my bouquet and my bridesmaid's flowers on the morning of the wedding on the way back to the hotel from the Hair Salon and our tables had no fresh flowers, just tin cans with twigs and paper flowers.

Another big saving was my dress, I couldn't justify a massive spend and was really hoping to find something I would like second hand so I was delighted when my Mam called me one day to say tick that off the list. She knows my style and taste better than anyone so when she saw it in a charity shop at home in Sligo, she knew it was "me" and just bought it. I'm not a big high street shopper, so avoiding the stress of the wedding dress hunt was a big relief. I think there is a lot of pressure to spend a fortune and to have "the dress". I didn't want to look like a Bride, I just wanted to be comfortable and feel good.

Another thing that worked well for us was the midnight feast- instead of tea and sandwiches, the band kept playing and we had pizzas sent out to every table.

For the signing of the register we decided to break from tradition and asked our two Mothers to do the honours. It seemed only right to have them officially sign us over to each other.

We have no regrets. There are little things we might do differently but nothing major and no regrets.

As for advice; when we got engaged we didn't tell anyone for a week and it was the best thing we could have done. As soon as you announce your engaged its non stop questions, for all the right reasons, people care and they want to help, but it can be very overwhelming and difficult to decide what you want with advice coming from all angles. We took a week to talk about what we wanted and what our priorities were, just the two of us, so we had a rough plan in place before before we told our family and friends.

Photographer; Darek Novak | Ceremony Venue; Smock Alley Theatre | Reception Venue; The Sugar Club | Florist; Street Vendor on Grafton Street | Cake; Sugar & Spice Pantry | Stationary / Invitations; Design on Etsy, print from Digital Printing Ireland | Wedding Dress; Charity Shop | Bridesmaid Dresses; Coast | Grooms Suit and Groomswear; Next | Shoes; TK Maxx | Transport; Dublin Bus- White Wedding Bus | Wedding Celebrant; Emma Sides | Hair Stylist and Make Up Artist; Sugar Cubed | Décor Hire; Budget Event Hire |Reception Music; The Trips